


By Agony, Laughter and Tears

by Lilymoncat



Series: And The Fray It Shall Become Me [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Almer Hero of Kvatch, Daedra, Daedric Princes, Interracial By Fantasy Standards, Interracial Relationship, Jauffre being driven to drink, Knights of the Nine DLC, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sanguine Rose, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Slash, You Have Been Warned, archmage HoK, eventually, half mad mage, possibly Shivering Isles DLC, there is not likely to be a happy ending, two people with a host of issues in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:36:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17499962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilymoncat/pseuds/Lilymoncat
Summary: Martin was a simple priest, trying to put his past behind him, when Oblivion gates that shouldn't be possible began opening.Now a half mad altmer bowmer tells him he's the last survivor of the Septim bloodline, and that he must light the Dragonfires and save Tamriel.  To do so, both of them will have to put aside their pasts, work together, and overcome the obstacles placed before them.Can an ex-sanguinist Priest of Akatosh and a Blade of Talos balanced on the knife's edge of Sheogorath's realm close shut the Jaws of Oblivion and foil a Daedric Prince?This the Elder Scrolls have scribed.





	By Agony, Laughter and Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Trying my hand at a longer Elder Scrolls fic, just to see if I can get somewhere with it.

When the gate opened and the Daedra took Kvatch, Martin prayed all that night, supplicant at the Time Dragon’s feet. At first the measured, proper litanies as befitted the God of law, fealty, and time, then as the unfortunate and the guards screamed and died out in the dark they turned frantic, desperate, half mad. Finally he was reduced to simply sobbing the same word under his breath again and again.

“Please…” He wasn’t sure what he pled for at that point. For it to all be over? For the monsters, the Daedra that shouldn’t be there in such numbers to finally overwhelm the guttering protections and swarm them? For someone to save them? Something within him twisted at the last thought, snarled bloody gold rage in the cage he’d built for it over the years. Martin was no longer a young fool spilling wine, wit, and seed at Sanguine’s altar. His patience was hard won, and if he was going to die it would be on his own terms, not because of his own hot headedness.

“Please, Father of Law…” Send us your protection, his mind supplied. Send us the one who is your sword and shield, the Blade in your hand raised against the hordes of Oblivion. Send us a Saint, a Champion. More time passed in a daze, almost a trance. As the hour-candle burned to the 3rd hour, the Madgod’s time, Martin thought someone came to sit by him and bow his head. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a tangled mane of white hair with a few streaks of coppery red still in it, mostly hiding the face of the altmer beside him with only glimpses of golden skin and a pointed ear telling him the others race. The hour had almost passed in silence, Martin feeling to breathe his prayers out loud would suddenly be unwise, before the stranger stood up.

“Whether ye believe it or not He does hear ye, Scholar. Ye’ll get yer answer, pity the both of ye.” Martin looked into the yellow-black eyes of madness with a dawning sense of horror, but Sheogorath merely smiled at him, tapping his cane against the ground. “But for now, ye’d best forget and WAKE UP!” Martin jerked awake to one of the sisters shaking him, trying to recall the nightmare that had touched him. In bleary confusion he looked at the hour-candle, to see it burned down and the candle for the new day already lit and halfway through Akatosh’s hour. He must have fallen asleep at some point in his prayers. Martin stood, wincing as his back protested and looked to the sister. She passed him a half loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and a cup of blessed well water before heading on to her next sleeping victim.

He ate and drank without tasting, still unnerved by the dream he couldn’t recall. It had the ominous feeling of prophecy to it. Martin set the cup aside, and moved on to doing what he could. Comforting the living, easing the pain of the dying, washing cloths and binding wounds. But in the back of his mind he worried at the thoughts that the gods had abandoned them like a dog with a bone. Looking through a book that might have a decent poultice for wound infection written on its pages, Martin found himself thinking that if there was some kind of divine plan, he wanted no part in it.

For a moment the world seemed to still, then there was a noise like thunder followed by an almost inaudible keen and the sense of something crashing closed. Martin and many of the other priests and priestesses staggered, the overwhelming pressure of daedric influence suddenly reduced. He picked up the book he had dropped, placing it on the table with an air of idle indifference.

“Well, something seems to have happened.” Oleta, the Master Healer, drawled while she picked up the basket of wraps she’d also dropped. “I suppose it’s too much to pray it was the gate these daedra came through finally collapsing.” Martin nodded in weary agreement, taking the wraps from her and heading to the beds where the injured lay. He focused on unwrapping old bindings, cleansing wounds with water and wine, packing in poultices. So it was with surprise that he heard his name being called.

Martin raised his head and looked in the direction of the speaker. An altmer in battered and scorched chainmail was talking to Oleta. Martin would estimate he was about sixty to seventy, like himself no longer a ‘young’ adult but still in the prime of his life. His sunset hair brushed his shoulders with ragged ends and a choppy length to suggest it had recently been cut, and he was whipcord and sinew. A bow was strapped to his back and a sword that had clearly seen better days rested at his left hip. The mer looked in the direction Oleta was pointing, and Martin’s gaze met eyes so pale a gray they seemed almost white. He shivered a little as the mer moved in his direction, unnerved by the intentness in his stare. Martin mustered a weak smile, trying to cover his exhaustion.

“Well met, traveller. Have you brought help? We’ve been trapped here since the Daedra overran the city.” The mer tilted his head at the greeting, then responded with words that made Martin’s blood run cold.

“The siege is broken, but there’s no time. Come with me, you’re in danger.” There were none of the telltale signs of a lie, no hiding of lips and eyes, no twisting hands or played with hair. The mer genuinely believed what he said, that of all the people here in danger Martin himself was somehow in the worst of it. It angered him, that callous assumption, and his next words came out sharp and irate.

“Of course I’m in danger, everyone here is in danger. I can’t leave them here alone to die. I’ll assume you didn’t risk your life to come here to tell me the obvious. Who are you and what do you really want with me?” The mer’s eyes widened a bit, slit pupils expanding as if caught by surprise.

“Alkirithe Stormfaere. You are Martin, yes? The priest?” He now seemed uncertain, as if he might have been directed to the wrong person. Martin sighed, resisting the urge to rub the ache between his eyes.

“Yes I’m a priest, for all the good it does these people right now.” He closed his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding what the gods want right now, why they would permit something like this. If this is all part of some divine plan, I’m not sure I want anything to do with it.” With people left out in the dark to the monsters that the gods had promised would be held back. With magicka reserves drained to dregs, people already looking at each other resentfully over who got a mouthful more of food. A soft noise drew Martin’s attention back to the altmer. His hand was held partway out, as if he wanted to offer comfort but didn’t quite dare. Alkirithe bit his lip, nervous all of a sudden, and Martin knew he wouldn’t like what the high elf had to say.

“There’s a plan, you’re part of it.” Martin stared at him with incredulity, then let out a half hysterical laugh. Oleta looked over in askance, but he ignored her.

“What plan, what are you talking about? I prayed to Akatosh all through the night as the daedra attacked, but no answers and no help came. Only ever more screams, ever more daedra. What can you possibly know that would help me make sense of this?” Alkirithe grabbed his shoulders suddenly, brought their foreheads almost together so Martin could do little other then look the altmer in the eyes.

“You are Uriel Septim VII’s last son. The last Dragon Emperor. Kill you, and all hope of stopping this is lost.” The words were soft, meant to travel no farther then the two of them. At first, Martin couldn’t make sense of them. He wasn’t, he couldn’t be who the altmer was claiming. He was the son of a farmer, a fool who’d led friends to their deaths in search of the next perfect high, of Sanguine’s approval. A disillusioned man hiding his bitterness behind the calm facade of the priesthood. Not someone special.

“No.” He whispered, desperate. “No, I’m, not, I can’t… my father was a farmer, I’m just a parochial…” Not the vicar or even the parochus, though it had been offered to him for his calm and steady demeanor a time or two. Martin didn’t trust himself, didn’t trust that he could lead people to follow the Nine safely or without choking on his own hypocrisy. Alkirithe gave his shoulders a shake, forcing Martin’s attention back onto him. The mer’s voice was soft but intense, as if he had a hard time believing what he said himself.

“You are. I was with the Emperor when it happened, was taken out of the dungeons on his orders and over the objections of several Blades to follow him and make sure you were found. He told me who to go to for your whereabouts, pressed the Amulet of Kings into my hands to be given to you as he died.” His grip turned almost bruising on Martin’s shoulders. “I was sent here to find you and bring you to safety. I swore I would do so, and if I have to drug you and fling you over the rump of a plow horse to get you out of here, by Dibella’s Tits and Jephre’s Tongue I will do so.” There was a distant, haunted look to Alkirithe’s eyes and Martin stilled himself, drawing the mer’s attention back to the present.

“You were there? With him? He told you to find me?” Martin wasn’t sure what he felt. Betrayal that the man who’d raised him as his own never told him, resentment that his sire had never cared enough to actually know him. That he was being used as a pawn beyond the grave. Then again, given what Uriel Septim VII had done to the Nerevarine and to the altmer before him it didn’t truly surprise Martin. The Emperor was known both for his visions of the future and acting on them. Alkirithe let go of Martin’s shoulders and stepped back, composing himself.

“He asked. He could do nothing more, see nothing more beyond his death. He could only hope I would come to you, only hope you would rise to your destiny. Why would I lie to you?” A faint and mocking smile appeared on the altmer’s lips. “Particularly one that sounds like the Madgod having a jest at everyone’s expense?” It was Martin’s turn to hesitantly extend a hand, uncertain that Alkirithe would permit him to touch him. Altmer were known to be… selective in who was allowed to manhandle them back. The mer stilled as Martin’s hand made contact with his shoulder, watching him with unreadable eyes.

“As strange as it is, I think I actually believe you. But I can’t leave,” Martin saw Alkirithe open his mouth and talked over him. “Not when there are still daedra trapped here. Not when these people, my people, are still at risk from them.” Alkirithe blinked, then raised an eyebrow.

“Then what is your command, my Emperor?” Martin felt a mild surge of annoyance. He was no one’s Emperor yet. The altmer before him might still be madder than a hatter or one of Sheogorath’s Chosen. He drew in a breath, exhaled it slowly.

“The gate is gone, but the siege is not truly broken until the daedra are gone and the Count is found alive or dead.” He removed his hand from the altmer’s shoulder. “Do so, and I will go with you.” Alkirithe tilted his head, then bowed to Martin.

“As you command.” He turned and strode over to a group of Kvatch guardsmen, joining in their talk and leaving Martin feeling curiously bereft. He turned back to his tasks, busying himself with make work. All the while his mind wondered if what Alkirithe had said was true. If he was the last son of the Emperor, the last of Talos’ blood on Nirn.

It frightened him to think such a thing could be true.


End file.
